Al Gore really started something about 25 years ago when he used his public loudspeaker to scare us all into global warming. As I recall, we were all going to be under water by now. I’ve always been a doubter, because in our history the world has always had temperature ups and downs, due mainly to variations in sun activity.

Besides when I was young most houses had coal-burning furnaces in their cellars, which have all been discarded with modern gas and oil burning furnaces. I’m sure they’re not nearly as dangerous as all those coal burning ones.

One thing has concerned me. That is when they tell us about glacier reduction and other kinds of thawing going on in the colder regions where there is little habitation. No longer burning coal has been a change for the good. What has happened? I’m probably nuts for even having the guts to point this out, but what has changed?

If you were going to hike 10 or 20 miles, you would do it one step at a time, Each step wouldn’t do much for you, and you could undoubtedly ignore the gain any few steps forward helped, but one by one they all add up to 10 or 20 miles. What’s my point? What are we doing now that we have NEVER done before?

I’m celebrating 92 years on this planet. There is one thing which has grown astronomically since I was a kid. That is the spewing of electromagnetic energy everywhere.

When I was a kid the only electromagnetic energy was a few new-born radio stations, and there wasn’t much of that. Today we have more of it than any of us realize. A cell telephone gives off very little electromagnetic energy, but like the single step on a journey, millions of them add up to something.

Electromagnetic waves, for radio and TV are transmitted and others for multitudinous reasons, they permeate our planet’s atmosphere continuously, in just about every frequency capable of making them usable. We use it to control drones, guide airplanes, open our garage doors, call our friends, businesses use it in more ways than I can describe. What do you think all those satellites above earth flood the whole world with? Today the world is completely awash in electromagnetic waves. They are the biggest change in our environment today, more than any of us know or realize.

What has brought the idea to me is when they talk about glaciers melting in Alaska or other frigid zones of the world. First let’s all understand that when electromagnetic waves are radiated, they will set up an electric current in anything they meet that will conduct electricity. That of course is any receiving antenna, or anything else at all that will conduct electricity. Today the atmosphere of the earth is awash in radio waves of every description causing electrical current to flow in places we have never thought of, and perhaps, in even greater strength than we might normally think.

What we seldom think about is that a radio wave sets up a current flow in any conductor, of any kind, even in a snow bank full of conducting impurities. Pure water is a natural insulator. However, precipitation especially when snow sets around for long periods as it does in the arctic regions, it takes on many impurities in the form of dust, dirt, etc. It makes one wonder if the slow but sure snow melting in our colder regions is not the result of warming over all, but the result of many tiny, harmless, footsteps of electromagnetic energy which surrounds our planet. I don’t know if we could ever quit using our cell phones, satellites, or other multitudinous control devices simply to save the planet.

Again, I do not wish to alarm anyone, and I’m probably getting in over my head. I just thought that perhaps Al Gore, not being electrically aware, was right for the wrong reason. Oh well. May God bless America.

Richard Westlund is a Collins resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com